One day after the surprise launch of the Retina iPad mini, small amounts of stock of the cellular-capable models of the device have begun trickling into Apple's U.S. retail stores. The company has been offering Personal Pickup of online orders since yesterday, but until now that service has been limited to Wi-Fi models.
Model selection is currently very limited and many stores have yet to show any available cellular models, but availability should improve over time as Apple delivers more stock to its stores.
While Apple retail stores in several other countries did have stocks of the cellular-capable Retina iPad mini at launch yesterday, the company's U.S. stores did not have any available. Online orders for the Retina iPad mini through Apple's U.S. store launched with 1-3 day shipping estimates on 16 and 32 GB Wi-Fi models, with larger-capacity Wi-Fi and all cellular models showing 5-10 day shipping. A number of customers who placed orders for Wi-Fi models have already seen their orders shipping directly from China, with delivery scheduled for early next week.
Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones.
Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3.
Notification Summary Changes
Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries
Apple Intelligence...
Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes.
While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner.
Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages.
Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far.
Apple Intelligence for Siri
Siri ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today.
A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device.
The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes.
The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by Juli Clover
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today.
On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models.
...
Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch.
In each of the past four years, ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year.
Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon.
Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code
In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...
If you're serious about using an iPad, the Cellular one is the only one to bother with, in my opinion.
Why? Simply because it includes Assisted GPS. The WiFi-only model does not.
That means, without having ANY data connection, you can take the Cellular iPad out into the middle of no where and still use it as a Turn by Turn GPS device (provided you have offline maps already downloaded).
That depends entirely upon what the user is serious about doing. Why? Because not everyone needs cellular service and certainly not just for GPS. Many iPad users also own an iPhone or other smartphone w/ GPS and also have GPS in their car. So unless one needs a cellular connection it's idiotic to spend $130 extra.
If you're serious about using an iPad, the Cellular one is the only one to bother with, in my opinion.
Why? Simply because it includes Assisted GPS. The WiFi-only model does not.
That means, without having ANY data connection, you can take the Cellular iPad out into the middle of no where and still use it as a Turn by Turn GPS device (provided you have offline maps already downloaded).
After 2 full days of waiting for my online order to update & ship, I've located the same model at the local Apple Store and canceled my order. Not sure what was taking them so long. I just have a hundred things to do during my lunch break so I probably won't get this thing until Saturday ;)
I did the exact same thing. I picked mine up at 8pm though. Took a couple of hours because Apples systems went down today and couldn't pick up when I paid at 6. Now my bank account has been charged twice for a 32gb cellular iPad mini. Hopefully it clear the cancelled one soon.
